Ready for the gentle turbulence?

On a more positive note today, I came across shanulk’s blog called “Strange Incidents in an Otherwise Ordinary Life”. Nice name by the way. He has done a fair bit of research on INSEAD and just got an offer. Congrats! I thought his ‘10 reasons to choose INSEAD’ would make a good case to justify the costs outlined in my previous post. In summary, you get what you pay for. Here it goes, in his words:

“ To all future MBAs let me tell you what you will miss out on if you don’t go to INSEAD:

1) Making Friends from Everywhere in the world. My batch has almost equal representation from 70+ countries.

2) The most diverse professional backgrounds. Every time I go through the “selected students” message board, I come across amazing profiles. For example there is a guy who was a team member of the US 2004 Olympics team. There is also a top model in my class. (I am already sharpening my math skills to be able to help her out)

3) An MBA in a year! It is strange why the “Ivy League” schools are still stuck with 2 year MBAs. Things have picked up since the easy paced days of the Victorian Era. You should he enterprising enough to get if done with your MBA in a year.

4) Have I mentioned the fact that though it is considered to be the best “general management” school in the world, if has the best finance professors too.

5) INSEAD’s December batches have had comparable placements with the US top 5 – Wharton, Stanford, Kelloggs, Chicago & Tuck.

6) You can stop having nightmares about loan sharks following you for the $110,000 that you need for the US top 10. INSEAD will get you a World Class MBA for about $70,000 inclusive of everything. And then you start making $$$ one year early (US Top 10 are all 2 year courses).

7) Your job is not dependent on any economy. If you graduate in a year when US economy is slowing down, you’ve had it unless you are an INSEADer – because companies from all once the world come here.

8) And companies that visit US Top 10 also visit INSEAD and pick an almost equal number of dudes and duddettes.

9) Female ratio is the lowest in INSEAD. Is this something good? Well, INSEAD selects people on basis of merit rather than to maintain a healthy sex ratio. Then there are 2 schools of thought. One, if you are a guy, you will be less distracted in your studies. Two, if you are a guy then you will make efforts to impress the one female in your group and study harder!

10) Since I want to make this a “10 reasons why” list, I will combine 2 points to make one. INSEAD gives you a fair chance to go to Wharton for 2 months. Second, you have a choice of going to Asia for a part of your course – it has a campus in Singapore too.”

Point 9 above prompted me to check the female ratio in NetVestibule. It seems like we now have 52 female students, 351 students overall. Much better than 15!

Simply, higher than you think! Now that my accommodation for next year is sorted, I need to look into getting a loan and applying for scholarships. INSEAD MBA programme is not cheap. The tuition fees cost €45,000 and average living expenses are €22,500 (excluding campus exchange costs and deposits). According to one of my interviewers, five years ago the tuition fees were only €27,000. He said since then INSEAD realised that it is at par with the elite American MBA programmes and adjusted the fees accordingly. What a way to almost double the fees in five years! The fees are normally paid in three instalments. 10% within three weeks of being offered a place, 60% one month before the classes start, and 30% four months into the programme. So, I will have paid 70% of my fees in three months time, scary…

There are many hidden costs that INSEAD doesn’t talk about until you’re admitted. For instance, the optional pre-MBA classes cost an additional €1200. If you don’t already speak three languages at business level or above, you may need to take language tuition during your studies. This would cost you €495 per period (A period is two months in INSEAD). A supplementary module, outside of core classes and required number of electives, would cost you €2200. Moreover, you should budget a further €800 for books. If you have to hand back your laptop to work and buy yourself a new one, count that in as well. So in the end, we probably looking at almost €50,000. I know some other MBA programmes providing all of these extras at zero cost to their MBAs. They simply integrate it into their tuition fees. This makes it more manageable but clearly this is not INSEAD’s choice.

On the positive, the school has a good reputation, especially in Europe, and it helps when looking to get a loan. So far from my observations, HSBC International offers the most competitive MBA loan at base rate plus 2% (currently makes 5% APR). Depending on individual circumstances they can offer anything from €10,000 to €50,000 with payback period up to 10 years. There is no penalty for early settlement. If you are in the UK, don’t go for HSBC graduate loans (currently around 7.5% minimum and more limited in many ways), make sure to contact HSBC International. There is also decent number of scholarships available to INSEAD students. I counted 45 when I last checked. They range between €3,000 and €15,000, a couple of higher ones at around €22,500 mark. Although, each one of them is targeted to different nationalities and some are gender specific. For instance, I am eligible to apply to nine of them, however we have been strongly advised not to apply to more than five and students are only allowed to get up to two scholarships. Currently, 20% of the students are financing their fees through scholarships. I heard that INSEAD is actively looking to increase its scholarships so there may be even more funding available in the future.